The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me yet
more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit. In the village of
Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I inquired
my way of a miller's man, who sent me up the hill upon the farther side
by a plain path, and so to a decent-like small house in a garden of
lawns and apple-trees. My heart beat high as I stepped inside the garden
hedge, but it fell low indeed when I came face to face with a grim and
fierce old lady, walking there in a white mutch with a man's hat
strapped upon the top of it.

"What do ye come seeking here?" she asked.

I told her I was after Miss Drummond.

"And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?" says she.

I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as to
render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady's
invitation.

"Oh, so you're Saxpence!" she cried, with a very sneering manner. "A
braw gift, a bonny gentleman. And hae ye ony ither name and designation,
or were ye bapteesed Saxpence?" she asked.

I told my name.

"Preserve me!" she cried. "Has Ebenezer gotten a son?"

"No, ma'am," said I. "I am a son of Alexander's. It's I that am the
Laird of Shaws."

"Ye'll find your work cut out for ye to establish that," quoth she.

"I perceive you know my uncle," said I; "and I daresay you may be the
better pleased to hear that business is arranged."

"And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?" she pursued.

"I'm come after my saxpence, mem," said I. "It's to be thought, being my
uncle's nephew, I would be found a careful lad."

"So ye have a spark of sleeness in ye," observed the old lady, with some
approval. "I thought ye had just been a cuif--you and your saxpence, and
your _lucky day_ and your _sake of Balwhidder_"--from which I was
gratified to learn that Catriona had not forgotten some of our talk.
"But all this is by the purpose," she resumed. "Am I to understand that
ye come here keeping company?"

"This is surely rather an early question," said I. "The maid is young,
so am I, worse fortune. I have but seen her the once. I'll not deny," I
added, making up my mind to try her with some frankness, "I'll not deny
but she has run in my head a good deal since I met in with her. That is
one thing; but it would be quite another, and I think I would look very
like a fool, to commit myself."

"You can speak out of your mouth, I see," said the old l